


Jealous Sirius (angst)

by simplysirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, One Shot, Pining, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplysirius/pseuds/simplysirius
Summary: Based on an anon request: Remus is tutoring a fit student, who he may or may not have a crush on, and Sirius is extremely jealous. Lots of angst and sad boy hours ensue.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 106





	Jealous Sirius (angst)

When Professor McGonagall asked Sirius if he wanted to tutor a struggling fifth year for some extra credit following a rather disastrous prank gone wrong, it took every bit of restraint to keep Sirius from laughing. His bit the inside of his cheek, rocking on his heels, and shook his head with a sly smile.

“Sorry, Professor, I don’t think I’m going to have the time,” he apologized. It was his sixth year; there were NEWT classes to take, Quidditch games to play, pranks against Snivellus to plot. And of course, there was Remus. They had spent the summer together, lazy warm nights casting bedsheets aside, sheepishly apologizing to James for leaving him stranded during outings in town, falling asleep on the grass watching shooting stars streak across the sky. The two best friends who were so extremely friendly that they refused to see pass the thin veil that obscured their hearts. Sirius had allotted plenty of time that year to stare longingly, laugh loudly, and fantasize hourly. 

Imagine Sirius’ confusion when Remus announced he was too busy that afternoon to goof off eating pastries during their free period, instead pulling aside two chairs at the end of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and waiting for his new student.

“You’re doing that tutoring thing for Minnie?” Sirius laughed. “Why? You don’t need the extra credit.”

“There’s nothing wrong with extra credit,” Remus disagreed. “Did she really ask you first?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Moony. I’m a transfiguration master.”

“Which is clearly why you need the extra credit,” James chimed in beside him. Lily sipped on her cup of tea and nodded in agreement.

Sirius frowned and selected an apple from the bowl on the table, taking an aggressive bite without losing Remus’ gaze.

“Hey Remus,” a boy greeted from behind them, shifting his pile of textbooks from one arm to the other.

Remus smiled and welcomed him into the seat beside him, reaching up and helping him with the heavy stack of books. With Remus’ back towards them, Sirius was left to stare at Remus’ new student, critical eye narrowing in on his robes, his notebook, and finally, his face.

Professor McGonagall had asked Remus to tutor a student. McGonagall didn’t say that the student in question was none other than Beckett Laurens. Sirius had no problem with Beckett Laurens. There was, of course, the fact that he was a proud Slytherin, which called for a certain amount of animosity on its own terms, but otherwise, Beckett Laurens was a perfectly fine person. 

“Thank you again for agreeing to do this. I really appreciate it,” Beckett gushed, flipping his notes open to a clean page. “There’s no way I’m gonna pass this test tomorrow.”

“I can’t promise anything, but I’m willing to give it a shot if you are,” Remus nodded humbly, as if he had any doubt in his mind that this kid wouldn’t pass his OWL with flying colors. “You helped me with that divination project last year, it’s the least I can do.”

Beckett nodded eagerly. “I’m terrible at transfiguration, just so you know. We’ll be spending so much time together you’ll probably be sick of me in a week.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and James scoffed, but Remus managed another easy smile and laughed, a jovial, genuine sound that made Sirius’ toes curl. Remus reached over and playfully shoved Beckett, who gave an affectionate shove back. “That would never happen.”

It was then that Sirius realized he had a huge problem with Beckett Laurens. Stupid Beckett Laurens, with his black buzz cut and canvas jacket with too many pins on the breast pocket and soft blue eyes that pooled like the brightest spring day. Stupid Beckett Laurens glancing over his homework at Remus, tiny dimples popping at the corners of his mouth as he smiled at something Remus said. Stupid Beckett Laurens being so stupid when it came to transfiguration that he needed a tutor to make him seem less stupid.

“You’re going to crush your apple,” James said, watching Sirius’ hand clench around the deep red Macintosh.

Snapping back to reality, Sirius released the now-dented fruit, juice trickling down his hand and staining his pants. With one last blistering glare at Remus’, he pushed the apple into James’ hand. “I’m not hungry anymore.” Sirius stood from the table and sulked out of the Great Hall, hands buried in his pockets, long strands of hair cascading around his shoulders and hiding his face from view.

“I don’t want this!” James called, tossing the apple on his plate and wiping his hands on the tablecloth. Lily watched Sirius leave, eyes narrowed in a way that suggested intense concentration, determined to figure out just what was going on. 

Sirius lay on his bed upside down, letting all the blood rush to his head as he stared out the window at the passing clouds, watching the sunlight give way to the encroaching darkness. His heart felt like it was going to break through his ribs and run out the door; why had he never noticed Beckett Laurens before? More importantly, when did Remus start to notice – really notice – Beckett Laurens? And why didn’t Remus notice Sirius?

Had they not spent the summer together, swimming in ponds at midnight and making pancakes every Sunday morning and pretending that they didn’t want to see the other step out of the shower clad in just a towel? Had those shirtless nights, honey-drizzled mornings, and stolen stares meant nothing? 

It made Sirius’ stomach twist into such a tight knot that he felt nauseous, and he struggled to sit upright with the weight of his heart dragging him down like an anchor in a bottomless ocean. He held his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, and wished for the ache constricting his chest to go away. 

Outside the bedroom door, Sirius heard the familiar creak of the wooden stairs, groaning under the weight of a body. Resolute to avoid all human interaction at the moment, Sirius quickly cocooned himself under his bedsheets, his head hitting the pillow just as the door opened. Sirius held his breath, eyes frozen as he instantly recognized the soft breaths and careful footsteps treading over squeaking floorboards. James swept through a room like a tornado; Remus was a gentle summer breeze. Praying for Remus to get whatever he needed to make Beckett Laurens less stupid and high tail it out of there, his eyebrows furrowed when he heard Remus approach his bed, stopping within arm’s reach of where Sirius lay. 

Sirius waited for Remus to do something. To say good night. To touch his shoulder. To check if he was really sleeping. But without a single glancing blow, Remus tiptoed out of the bedroom and shut the door behind him. Sirius’ fingers curled around the bedspread as he pulled it up and over his face, hoping that if he lay still enough, he’d disappear. 

Disappointment tasted bitter in Sirius’ mouth the next morning when he realized that he had not, in fact, disappeared. He was the last one out of bed, holding onto hope that just a few more minutes under the protection of the quilt would whisk him away to a barren, desolate paradise. 

“Hey,” Remus said, gently shaking Sirius’ shoulder. “Time to wake up.”

Emerging from his blanket cocoon with the grace of a slug, Sirius bolted upright and threw the covers aside. “I’m awake,” he replied angrily, the burst of unexpected vitriol stinging Remus with a thousand barbs. Taken aback, Remus watched Sirius slip on his robes, grab the wrong textbook for his first class, and slam the door behind him. 

James swung the door of the bathroom open, steam emanating behind him from the world’s hottest shower, and raised one eyebrow. “Good morning to you, too,” he said sarcastically.

Remus stared at the door, hoping Sirius forgot something and would storm back in, trying to think of what to say to calm the storm. After a moment of listening to Sirius stomp down the stairs with the force of a hundred elephants, Remus frowned and got ready for class.

On their first day of potions class, all the way back in first year, Sirius was delighted that he got to sit next to Remus. The feeling never wore off, even when they claimed the same table in year two, and three, and so on, until today, in sixth year, when sitting next to Remus felt like a cruel joke. Sirius told himself he could do it; he could sit next to him and brush Remus’ elbows when pouring a vial into the cauldron, he could smell the warm earl gray tea roll off Remus’ tongue and not think about tasting it, he could sit there with his hands in his lap and not make a single joke about the horribly ugly yellow sweater Remus decided to wear that morning. 

But when Remus cautiously slid onto the stool next to him later that day, his resolution wavered. If brushing elbows was the closest touch he was ever going to get, then goddamnit, Sirius was going to take it. Part of him wondered if he was overreacting. Would it have been the first time? Sirius would say yes. James and Remus would say no. Remus was funny, in that kind of deadpan what-are-you-laughing-at sort of way, so maybe Beckett had been laughing at Remus, not with him. Beckett was handsome – Sirius tried so hard the previous night to deny it, but he had quickly come to the conclusion that it was simply not possible – and Remus liked looking at pretty things when they visited the British Museum that summer, so maybe that’s all Beckett was; a pretty thing to look at. 

With a deep, steadying breath, Sirius turned to Remus and James, sitting behind them next to Lily, and forced a smile. “I have a new idea for Snivellus.”

James perked up and leaned forward, ignoring Lily’s rolling eyes. Remus’ head tilted, a little unsure until he realized that Sirius wasn’t interested in explaining his behavior. 

“It’s been a while since your last good one,” Remus remarked, striving for some kind of normalcy. “I was starting to think you lost your touch–”

“Remus!” A voice called from behind them. Not belonging to James or Lily or even Snape, sulking in the back row. Sirius bristled. 

Beckett Laurens stood in the doorway, waving Remus over. He held a piece of paper in his hand, holding it like it was as precious as the Declaration of Independence. 

Remus flashed an apologetic look at Sirius and James before he pushed himself off the stool and left the classroom. Sirius’ jaw clenched shut as Remus jogged the last few steps, in a hurry to get closer to Beckett. 

James was oblivious and droned on about the upcoming Quidditch game against Slytherin, vowing to continue his undefeated win streak until they graduated next year. He insisted that a James Potter statue would look lovely in front of the main gates of Hogwarts. Lily dissented with a sly smile.

Sirius watched Remus and Beckett, straining his ears to hear anything but James’ rampant babbling with little success. Beckett presented the paper to Remus, and whatever it said made Remus smile so wide that the apples of his cheeks touched his eyes. The kind of smile that Sirius thought was only reserved for him. Beckett tenderly touched Remus’ arm, tilting his head with such fondness that Sirius thought he might combust into flames. 

The clock tower bell chimed, indicating that classes would begin momentarily. Remus turned to leave, not about to ruin his perfect attendance record, but was pulled into an embrace with an unsubtle kiss to the cheek before Beckett sprinted down the hall for his class. Remus hurried to his seat and leaned close to Sirius, cheeks flushed bright pink, and not from the run.

“Sorry. What about the prank?”

Sirius blinked. “Forget it,” he mumbled, facing forward and letting his hair fall like a curtain between them. 

Remus glanced back at James, who shrugged, and at Lily, who pursed her lips. Lily watched Sirius; how he sat at the very edge of his seat so as not to touch Remus, how the muscles running down his neck were taut, how his foot never stopped bouncing on the rail of his stool. 

The goal of the class that day was simple: brew an amortentia potion without referencing the textbook. Sirius had glanced over the reading enough to know the general order of ingredients. He selected a clump of knotgrass and sprinkled it into the cauldron between Remus and him. Glancing around for the next ingredient, Remus collected a vial and held it over the brewing potion.

“That’s not right,” Sirius argued, pointing at the green vial. “You don’t add that until the end.”

Remus shook his head in disagreement. “I just read about amortentia last night, you add the peppermint second and stir it three times clockwise. 

“No, it’s two times counterclockwise, once clockwise.”

“Are you really going to argue with me about this?” Remus asked, his voice hushed to avoid wandering ears. 

Sirius shrugged and poured a bottle of pink syrup into the pot. “If you insist on being wrong, sure. Would’ve thought a world-class tutor would know how to make amortentia by sixth year.”

“I’m telling you I know how to make it!” Remus exclaimed, adding the peppermint in hopes that it would balance out the awful pink syrup. Inside the cauldron, the mixture bubbled and steamed, not at all looking like the drawings in the textbook. 

“Yeah, clearly you know how to make it,” Sirius huffed, stirring the cauldron.

“You’re doing it wrong!”

“Are there any problems over here, boys?” The professor asked, raising an eyebrow above this thin spectacles. 

Remus shook his head quickly and slumped his shoulders back. Before the professor had time to move along to another table, Sirius and Remus’ cauldron exploded, bursting through the air and crashing into a nearby display case, shattering glass and spilling unused potions. 

Sirius held his hands up, palms-out, though it did nothing to quell Remus’ anger or the professor’s punishment. Sirius and Remus would have plenty of time to remember how to make amortentia that afternoon while they cleaned up their mess in detention.

When the bell tower tolled again and Sirius was the first one out of the room with a dramatic swish of his robes, Lily had finally pieced it together.

She confronted him before lunch, cornering him in the hallway knowing full well that Sirius didn’t intend on eating lunch at the Gryffindor table like always. 

“Evans, let go of me!” He demanded, wrist crushed by Lily’s rough grip. She tore him around the corridor into the empty passageway and sat him on a bench.

“What exactly is going on with you?” Lily asked, crossing her arms on her chest to let Sirius know that he wasn’t going anywhere without answering the question.

He jerked his head left, refusing to look at her. There was something about Lily Evans’ emerald eyes that prevented him from telling even the smallest lies. He’d have the perfect fib on his tongue, and then, finding Lily’s delicate eyes, his heart would jump off his sleeve and into his mouth. “Nothing.”

“If you’re jealous of Bec, why don’t you just tell Remus the truth?” Lily suggested. Sirius stared at her now, mouth agape, wondering how she could have guessed accurately. “Seems like a better option than hurting him.”

“If you already knew,” Sirius lamented, “why did you bother asking me in the first place?”

Lily shrugged. “Because if you can’t come clean to me, how are you going to come clean to him?”

“He doesn’t want me.” The words burned Sirius’ throat with the heat of a volcanic inferno. 

“You’re too scared to tell him. He’s too scared to tell you. You’re both idiots.” Lily shrugged her shoulders, like it was a matter of fact rather than opinion. Sirius didn’t want to allow himself to think that she was right; Remus had nothing to fear. He had every opportunity over the summer to say something; couldn’t he see that Sirius’ shoulders shook with anticipation each night they fell asleep in the same bed that he might finally – finally – say it? 

As if Lily could sense his doubts, she sighed. “Stop sulking and feeling bad for yourself. He’s never going to know unless you tell him.” Dropping a comforting hand on his head, Lily headed for the Grand Hall, hoping that James didn’t eat her share of the cheese toasties. She disappeared around the corner, only for her head to pop back a moment later. “You deserve to be happy, Sirius. But you can’t hate Remus if he’s happy, too.”

Sirius spent lunch in the astronomy tower, with no one but the pigeons to keep him company. In hindsight, he couldn’t have picked a worse place to come – memories of late-night jaunts and secret smiles under the invisibility cloak flooded his vision – but he could think of no better place to go. He rest his head against the hard stone walls, thinking about Remus, thinking about stupid Beckett Laurens, and thinking about himself.

Would he be more appealing if he was a Slytherin? If he had just followed in his family’s footsteps just like every other Black that came before him, instead of insisting on going rogue and joining the Gryffindor ranks? If he had followed his destiny, would he have crossed paths with the only person that haunted his every daydream and danced through every nightmare? Was it the buzz cut? Sirius could get a haircut. Just maybe not that short. Was it because he wasn’t tall? Maybe Madam Pomfrey had an elixir to add a couple inches. It could be so many things, but Sirius realized, with a sudden start, that there was only one thing that he knew for certain.

He was no longer the only person who made Remus smile that endearing crooked, toothy grin. And the more he thought about it, the harder Sirius clenched his jaw to keep the tears gathering in his eyes from spilling over. 

Sirius never enjoyed detention, but the laborious chores or endless extra assignments were always made tolerable when in the company of his friends. Now, armed with a broom, he looked over at Remus with his little dustpan and hardly recognized the boy. Alarmed that Sirius could not only stand to lose his secret obsession, but his best friend, he tried his best to extend a silent olive branch by sweeping piles of broken glass into Remus’ dustpan.

Remus huffed in annoyance and Sirius backed off, retreating to the far side of the room when glass splinters had collected. 

“You know, if you wanted the tutoring job so badly, you could have said yes,” Remus grimaced, pointedly not looking at Sirius as he emptied his pan into the trash bin. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Sirius grumbled under his breath, not intending for Remus to hear. There were times when, despite physical appearances and disappearances, Sirius forgot that Remus was a werewolf, and even with human skin covering his bones, his heightened senses never left. Sirius’ lips curled over his teeth, knowing he was caught this time.

Remus threw down the broom and flung his hands in the air. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you so pissed about this tutoring thing?”

“It was never about the fucking job!” Sirius screamed back, and suddenly the room was so silent that Sirius’ ears ached. He rubbed his hands on the handle of the broom, building up the courage to say what he desperately wanted to believe was a figment of his worst imagination. “You like him.” It was a broken, wretched accusation; Sirius no longer had the energy to execute an aggressive assault.

“Sirius–”

“You do.” 

After another silent moment, Remus rebuked, “Why would that even matter?” But Remus knew. He knew exactly why Sirius thought that mattered. He also knew that Sirius was wrong – dead wrong – but that he couldn’t possibly tell him. There was so much he could lose. But, if, after this detention, Sirius never spoke to him again, he’d have nothing to lose anymore.

That was all the confirmation Sirius needed. He nodded quietly, rubbing his lips together and propping his broom up against a desk. He swallowed thickly and slowly made his way towards the door. His feet shuffled against the stone floor, unable to pick up his shoes that were suddenly made with lead weights.

Remus shook his head, not understanding. Refusing to reveal that he understood just fine. With Sirius’ hand on the doorknob, Remus looked around his feet at the shards of glass yet to be swept up. “Where are you going? We aren’t even halfway finished–!”

“It matters because I love you!” Sirius shouted, whipping around to face Remus with glassy eyes. His chest heaved and he found himself gasping for air as his biggest secret swirled through the air and threatened to suffocate him.

Before Remus could even blink, Sirius escaped out the door. He could live a thousand lives and he wouldn’t forget the look on his face in those fleeting moments. The fear lashing at his nose. The sour pucker of his lips, trembling despite how hard he clenched his jaw. The realization that, by walking out that door, Sirius was losing the best part of him and succumbing to the worst part, plagued by pitch black nightmares that only Remus knew how to soothe. 

The look of a boy who was so terrified to admit where the deepest desires of his delicate heart lay at night that he would rather self-destruct than risk losing the one person who felt like home.


End file.
